website/content/en/docs/tutorials/stateful-application/cassandra.md

title	reviewers	content_template	weight
Example: Deploying Cassandra with Stateful Sets	ahmetb	templates/tutorial	30

{{% capture overview %}} This tutorial shows you how to develop a native cloud Cassandra deployment on Kubernetes. In this example, a custom Cassandra SeedProvider enables Cassandra to discover new Cassandra nodes as they join the cluster.

StatefulSets make it easier to deploy stateful applications within a clustered environment. For more information on the features used in this tutorial, see the StatefulSet documentation.

Cassandra on Docker

The Pods in this tutorial use the gcr.io/google-samples/cassandra:v13 image from Google's container registry. The Docker image above is based on debian-base and includes OpenJDK 8.

This image includes a standard Cassandra installation from the Apache Debian repo. By using environment variables you can change values that are inserted into cassandra.yaml.

ENV VAR	DEFAULT VALUE
CASSANDRA_CLUSTER_NAME	'Test Cluster'
CASSANDRA_NUM_TOKENS	32
CASSANDRA_RPC_ADDRESS	0.0.0.0

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{{% capture objectives %}}

• Create and validate a Cassandra headless Service.
• Use a StatefulSet to create a Cassandra ring.
• Validate the StatefulSet.
• Modify the StatefulSet.
• Delete the StatefulSet and its Pods. {{% /capture %}}

{{% capture prerequisites %}} To complete this tutorial, you should already have a basic familiarity with Pods, Services, and StatefulSets. In addition, you should:

• Install and Configure the kubectl command-line tool

• Download cassandra-service.yaml and cassandra-statefulset.yaml

• Have a supported Kubernetes cluster running

{{< note >}} Please read the setup if you do not already have a cluster. {{< /note >}}

Additional Minikube Setup Instructions

{{< caution >}} Minikube defaults to 1024MB of memory and 1 CPU. Running Minikube with the default resource configuration results in insufficient resource errors during this tutorial. To avoid these errors, start Minikube with the following settings:

minikube start --memory 5120 --cpus=4

{{< /caution >}}

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{{% capture lessoncontent %}}

Creating a Cassandra Headless Service

A Kubernetes Service describes a set of Pods that perform the same task.

The following Service is used for DNS lookups between Cassandra Pods and clients within the Kubernetes cluster.

{{< codenew file="application/cassandra/cassandra-service.yaml" >}}

1. Launch a terminal window in the directory you downloaded the manifest files.

2. Create a Service to track all Cassandra StatefulSet nodes from the cassandra-service.yaml file:

   kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/cassandra/cassandra-service.yaml
   

Validating (optional)

Get the Cassandra Service.

kubectl get svc cassandra

The response is

NAME        TYPE        CLUSTER-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
cassandra   ClusterIP   None         <none>        9042/TCP   45s

Service creation failed if anything else is returned. Read Debug Services for common issues.

Using a StatefulSet to Create a Cassandra Ring

The StatefulSet manifest, included below, creates a Cassandra ring that consists of three Pods.

{{< note >}} This example uses the default provisioner for Minikube. Please update the following StatefulSet for the cloud you are working with. {{< /note >}}

{{< codenew file="application/cassandra/cassandra-statefulset.yaml" >}}

1. Update the StatefulSet if necessary.

2. Create the Cassandra StatefulSet from the cassandra-statefulset.yaml file:

   kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/application/cassandra/cassandra-statefulset.yaml
   

Validating The Cassandra StatefulSet

1. Get the Cassandra StatefulSet:

   kubectl get statefulset cassandra
   

   The response should be:

   NAME        DESIRED   CURRENT   AGE
   cassandra   3         0         13s
   

   The StatefulSet resource deploys Pods sequentially.

2. Get the Pods to see the ordered creation status:

   kubectl get pods -l="app=cassandra"
   

   The response should be:

   NAME          READY     STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
   cassandra-0   1/1       Running             0          1m
   cassandra-1   0/1       ContainerCreating   0          8s
   

   It can take several minutes for all three Pods to deploy. Once they are deployed, the same command returns:

   NAME          READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   cassandra-0   1/1       Running   0          10m
   cassandra-1   1/1       Running   0          9m
   cassandra-2   1/1       Running   0          8m
   

3. Run the Cassandra nodetool to display the status of the ring.

   kubectl exec -it cassandra-0 -- nodetool status
   

   The response should look something like this:

   Datacenter: DC1-K8Demo
   ======================
   Status=Up/Down
   |/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
   --  Address     Load       Tokens       Owns (effective)  Host ID                               Rack
   UN  172.17.0.5  83.57 KiB  32           74.0%             e2dd09e6-d9d3-477e-96c5-45094c08db0f  Rack1-K8Demo
   UN  172.17.0.4  101.04 KiB  32           58.8%             f89d6835-3a42-4419-92b3-0e62cae1479c  Rack1-K8Demo
   UN  172.17.0.6  84.74 KiB  32           67.1%             a6a1e8c2-3dc5-4417-b1a0-26507af2aaad  Rack1-K8Demo
   

Modifying the Cassandra StatefulSet

Use kubectl edit to modify the size of a Cassandra StatefulSet.

1. Run the following command:

   kubectl edit statefulset cassandra
   

   This command opens an editor in your terminal. The line you need to change is the replicas field. The following sample is an excerpt of the StatefulSet file:

   # Please edit the object below. Lines beginning with a '#' will be ignored,
   # and an empty file will abort the edit. If an error occurs while saving this file will be
   # reopened with the relevant failures.
   #
   apiVersion: apps/v1 # for versions before 1.9.0 use apps/v1beta2
   kind: StatefulSet
   metadata:
     creationTimestamp: 2016-08-13T18:40:58Z
     generation: 1
     labels:
     app: cassandra
     name: cassandra
     namespace: default
     resourceVersion: "323"
     uid: 7a219483-6185-11e6-a910-42010a8a0fc0
   spec:
     replicas: 3
   

2. Change the number of replicas to 4, and then save the manifest.

   The StatefulSet now contains 4 Pods.

3. Get the Cassandra StatefulSet to verify:

   kubectl get statefulset cassandra
   

   The response should be

   NAME        DESIRED   CURRENT   AGE
   cassandra   4         4         36m
   

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{{% capture cleanup %}} Deleting or scaling a StatefulSet down does not delete the volumes associated with the StatefulSet. This setting is for your safety because your data is more valuable than automatically purging all related StatefulSet resources.

{{< warning >}} Depending on the storage class and reclaim policy, deleting the PersistentVolumeClaims may cause the associated volumes to also be deleted. Never assume you’ll be able to access data if its volume claims are deleted. {{< /warning >}}

1. Run the following commands (chained together into a single command) to delete everything in the Cassandra StatefulSet:

   grace=$(kubectl get po cassandra-0 -o=jsonpath='{.spec.terminationGracePeriodSeconds}') \
     && kubectl delete statefulset -l app=cassandra \
     && echo "Sleeping $grace" \
     && sleep $grace \
     && kubectl delete pvc -l app=cassandra
   

2. Run the following command to delete the Cassandra Service.

   kubectl delete service -l app=cassandra
   

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{{% capture whatsnext %}}

• Learn how to Scale a StatefulSet.
• Learn more about the KubernetesSeedProvider
• See more custom Seed Provider Configurations

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